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Our departure from Cuxhaven followed a little light rain but once into the Elbe we fiddled around for a few minutes with the sails but getting no help we motored for a mile or so and then tried again. The joy of push button sailing.
Then with the engine off we sailed up the Elbe in the company of some very nice English in a large Dutch motor yacht and several other boats. A lovely sail in varingy light winds got us to Brunsbuttle where we stemmed the tide for 80 minutes waiting for the lock. Just after 1400 our summons came, by way of a flashing white light, and in we all poured. Some impatient skippers shoving their way ahead only to get in a pickle once inside the lock was a pleasure to behold! We safely became the last boat in, the gate closed and we dropped about four feet in a few minutes to be released into the Kaiser's ditch.
We had no idea what to expect and the vista varied from a tad industrial to delightfully rural as the pictures show. Some very large cargo ships passed us slowly and a cruise ship, the Europa, followed us, at a discrete distance, for a while. We trudged on at 6.5 knots for over six hours finally turning off the main canal into a cut towards the town of Rendsburg where we tackled our first box mooring, a new experience not very efficiently handled, still, happily moored stern to for easy "Jasper" access we supped in the cockpit and enjoyed a bottle of Malbec to round off a full day over 55nm.
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